momagri, movement for a world agricultural organization, is a think tank chaired by Christian Pèes.It brings together, managers from the agricultural world and important people from external perspectives, such as health, development, strategy and defense. Its objective is to promote regulationof agricultural markets by creating new evaluation tools, such as economic models and indicators,and by drawing up proposals for an agricultural and international food policy.

The need to assess the level of food security

October 8, 2012

The Global Food Security Index (GFSI) developed by the Economist Intelligence Unit––an arm of The Economist Group––and sponsored by DuPont was launched on July 10, 2012. The new index provides a chart of agricultural and food core issues across 105 countries, and measures the underlying risks and factors affecting food security. The three criteria used include affordability––food prices, ratio of population under the poverty threshold––availability––adequate food stocks, volatility of agricultural output––as well as quality and safety––nutrition standards, caloric intakes. These various indicators lead to an overall score available from www.foodsecurityindex.eiu.com

On September 26, the GFSI was introduced in India at a conference gathering people from government, the food and agriculture industry and academia. Its results outlined India’s significant deficiencies in food security.

In fact, in spite of a strong agricultural potential, this “colossus with feet of clay” is still beset by major structural handicaps––strong exposure to climate hazards, inadequate productivity and insufficient investment—that lead to hunger and poverty.

The country is home to 224.6 million undernourished people and 66.8 percent of its population is living under the poverty threshold. The Index ranks India in 66th position, but in spite of increasingly apparent government intervention, the country is particularly exposed to a food price volatility generated by excessive speculation on domestic markets.

Accordingly, it has never been more urgent to assess food security levels, so that we can best meet tomorrow’s agricultural challenges. momagri actively works on creating the OSE (Food Security and Economic Effectiveness Optimum) indicator to assess a nation’s optimum level of openness and independence towards others, in order to guarantee the best possible level of food security.